CONNOR GOLDSON knows Rangers won’t be able to out play every opponent in their quest for Premiership glory this season.

But the Ibrox stopper insists Steven Gerrard’s side should never be out fought in the physical battle as they bid to get their title challenge back on track.

That silverware ambition suffered a setback on Sunday as Hearts followed up their draw with the Gers at Tynecastle earlier in the campaign by going one step further and claiming an unlikely victory for boss Daniel Stendel.

After sluggish showings against Stranraer and St Mirren in the days leading up to it, it was perhaps no surprise that Rangers would produce perhaps their worst performance of Gerrard’s reign. It came at a time when they could least afford it.

The defeat leaves Rangers now five points adrift of Celtic at the top of the table. If they are to avoid being second in the standings, they can’t be second best on the park.

“We need to put our game across first and that is not always going to be out-footballing every team in the league,” Goldson said. “Hearts’ game plan worked well, they pressed us and made it hard for us to play out.

“When it gets like that, we need to understand and need to show our intensity off the ball and not give it away as cheaply when we do get it.

“I thought we were second to a lot of the game and I thought they wanted it more than us, which was the worst thing about it. That is what I said after the game in the changing room.

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“On any day, you might not be the best footballing side and things might not go for you and you might not create 100 chances, but, at the same time, we can’t let a team want it more than us when we are going for a league title.”

The aftermath of the defeat has been typically hard-hitting for Rangers as punters and pundits have lined up to criticise and chastise following a lamentable afternoon in the Capital.

Boss Gerrard didn’t hold back in his condemnation of his players at Tynecastle as he insisted he ‘didn’t recognise’ his team and accepted that questions would be asked of their bottle.

In the away dressing room, and in the days since, as Goldson, who wore the armband in place of James Tavernier, and his team-mates have held their own much-needed post-mortem.

“Not really,” Goldson said when asked if he was surprised at how critical Gerrard was post-match. “I was the same in the dressing room, the boys were the same with each other.

“We are not going to go in after performing like that and have a happy changing room and happy management staff. We understand what happened, we are not silly, we are not boys. That was always going to be the case.

“We have a good group like that, we are all men and we all speak to each other with respect. But we all knew that it wasn’t good enough and we have got a lot of experienced players in that changing room.

“Even the younger boys have been here for a while now so they understand the situation and we knew that if we want to win the title then we can’t afford to play like that again.”

It is unthinkable for Gerrard and his players, and the Ibrox crowd, that Rangers would produce a similar performance when they return to Premiership duty against Ross County this evening.

The momentum from their Old Firm win before the winter break has now been lost but there is no need to throw in the towel in the title race.

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The coming weeks give Rangers a chance to regroup and establish themselves once again and it is one that Goldson is determined to make the most of.

Goldson said: “The league is still in our hands. If you look at it, we have got a lot of games left and we know that if we win all of our games we win the league, it is as simple as that.

“I know everything doesn’t look rosy after a defeat, especially at this football club, but if we win our game in hand we are two points behind and we know we still have to play Celtic twice. We just have to go from now until March and literally be as perfect as we can.

“That is a comfort [that we have responded from setbacks before]. It shows the strength we have in the changing room and it shows that we don’t dwell on things. But at this football club it is fortunate that you have a game every three days.

“You don’t have time to spend a week on the training round dwelling on a bad result. We need to look ahead and go into Ross County now and out on a performance that our fans deserve after Sunday.”